Bride For A Year

‘If it will help, I want you to know that I can wait for the money you owe me. It doesn’t matter when you pay it back.’

She spun around at that. ‘I can’t believe you!’ she said with a stunned shake of her head. ‘Just a few months ago I begged you to extend our time limit. You refused point-blank. Now my father is dead and you have the audacity to calmly tell me it doesn’t matter when I pay you back.’

‘I want to help you.’

‘Well, it’s too late.’ Her voice was anguished now. ‘And you know damned well it is.’

‘I can’t stand by and watch you go to the wall,’ he muttered.

‘At the risk of repeating myself, you were willing to stand by and do just that a few months ago.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Either you’ve got a massively guilty conscience or you’re a damn good actor.’

‘I don’t have a guilty conscience,’ he told her swiftly. ‘I had my reasons for refusing your father. They were good reasons.’

‘So good that I can’t understand them,’ she snapped. ‘Well, I’m not so unintelligent that I don’t see behind this charade of an offer now.’ She put one hand on her hip. ‘You are bothered about what people will think if I blab about the details of my father’s financial problems. A man who is running for mayor wouldn’t want this kind of blot on his copybook. So you come over here with the grand, charitable gesture of letting me off the hook a while longer.’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t need or want your charity, Brad.’

‘I’m not offering you charity,’ he rasped dryly. ‘I’m extending the hand of a concerned neighbour—’

‘Oh, please!’ She cut across him with laughing disdain. ‘As you are well aware, Brad, it’s too little, too late. That’s the problem when you’re heading towards bankruptcy, you see...’ Her voice shook with derision. ‘It’s like a domino effect. You get behind with one debt then others pile up... Then someone demands their money immediately and one by one things start to collapse.’ She glared at him. ‘I’m the last domino standing in place and all I can do is sell up fast before I fall flat on my face. You offering, oh, so benevolently, to prop me up for a little while longer won’t make a scrap of difference now. I needed your support several months ago... It’s no damn good to me at all now.’

‘Things are that bad, then?’ he asked quietly.

She slanted him a dry look. ‘You were the one telling me how bad things were as we walked in from the vineyard.’

‘I didn’t realise that things had moved quite so quickly.’ He shook his head. ‘Have you spoken with the bank?’

She nodded and bent to lift the icepack from her foot. It had stopped throbbing now, maybe overshadowed by the greater pain inside. ‘They strongly urge me to go ahead with the auction...and not to waste a moment.’

‘Can’t you just sell off pieces of the property, without losing your house?’ he asked. ‘I’d be interested in acquiring some of your land.’

‘I’m sure you would.’ She flashed him a knowing look. ‘I knew that’s what you were angling for—’

‘That’s not what I want,’ he cut in tersely.

‘So which piece of land are you thinking of?’ she carried on swiftly, as if he hadn’t spoken.

He shrugged. ‘How about the slice that runs along the far back of my property?’

‘You mean the piece that contains the only water I have?’ Her voice trembled with fury. ‘This place won’t fetch very much on the open market, not in this rundown state, but without that water it will be virtually worthless.’

‘You can modernise. Install a new irrigation system in—’

‘Do you have any idea how much money you are talking about?’ she demanded fiercely.

‘Of course,’ he replied coolly.

‘Then you’ll know that even if I did sell you that land there wouldn’t be enough left over from paying back my debt to you and the others to install a bore hole, never mind anything else.’ She raked a hand through her hair. ‘No, I’ll have to sell the whole place... There’s no alternative.’

She swung away from him and walked over towards the kitchen to put the rapidly melting ice in the sink. For a moment her eyes moved over the rustic charm of the place. The dresser, the pine scrubbed table and the dried flowers on the farmhouse rack... Her home. Her heart twisted painfully.

‘So where will you go?’

Brad’s voice in the doorway behind her made her turn and look at him.

She shrugged. Tve got friends that I made when I was away at college. I’ve had letters of condolence and an offer that I can share a friend’s flat while I look around for a job.’

‘A male friend?’ Brad asked, a caustic note in his voice.

She frowned. The offer had been from a girlfriend, but she wasn’t about to enlighten him. ‘That’s none of your damned business,’ she grated with annoyance. ‘The fact remains that I have very little option but to move away from this area altogether. I need to get myself a job, start again.’

‘There are always other options.’

‘Such as?’

‘We could become partners,’ he said quietly.

She was so surprised she could hardly say anything for a moment ‘You mean you would write off my loan and straighten out all my other debts if I made you a sleeping partner in the vineyard?’

‘In a roundabout way... yes.’

She was incredulous now. ‘You do want the vineyard, then?’

He shrugged. ‘I’m more in need of the partner than I am of the vineyard.’

When she continued to stare at him, perplexed, he smiled. ‘I need a wife.’

‘A wife?’ She looked at him blankly. ‘I’m sorry, Brad, I don’t understand.’

‘I’m asking you to marry me,’ he said quietly.

She stared at him. This had to be some kind of a joke! Her lips curved and she found herself laughing. She couldn’t help herself. It was the nerve-tingling absurdity of the suggestion. ‘You can’t possibly be serious!’

‘I’m not talking about a lifelong commitment. I’m talking about twelve months.’

‘It sounds like a jail sentence.’ Paige was rewarded by a momentary expression of anger on his face. It gave her a certain amount of pleasure to strike through that cool, smug exterior of his. What on earth was he playing at? she wondered grimly. She had no illusions about his feelings for her... They might have been friends in the past, but he had never given her any indication that he wanted that friendship to deepen, no matter how much she had secretly yearned for it.

‘You want me for twelve months... What do I get?’ she asked derisively. ‘A purple heart for living with the enemy?’

‘You get this place. I’ll build it up for you, stick it back together and write off your loans.’ His voice was tight.

‘That’s a pretty expensive package.’ Her heart thundered against her breast. ‘And you’d be willing to do that to have me as your wife for twelve months?’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t understand this at all. Why a year? What’s in it for you?’

His lips curved in a mirthless smile. ‘I want a dutiful wife... Someone who will look up at me adoringly.’

Suddenly it clicked with her. ‘This is all because you are running for mayor here, isn’t it? You want the right image? The loving husband, a family man—’

‘Hold on there.’ He cut across her swiftly. ‘I’m not looking to start a family with you... Children are not part of the equation.’

Heat licked through her at the insulting undertone of that statement, but before she could coherently formulate a cutting reply he continued, ‘But yes, it has been suggested that I will find it easier to get elected if I’m married.’

‘And when we part... How would that look to your precious image?’

He laughed. ‘I’ll tell everyone you married me for my money... It won’t be so far from the truth, will it? I’ll probably be voted in again out of sympathy.’

She shook her head. ‘So why me?’

‘Why not you? You’re attractive. You know the score up front. We can draw up a business agreement and know where we stand.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m not really the marrying kind. I like my freedom. However, twelve months doesn’t sound like such a bad idea.’

It was such a preposterous idea that she just stared at him. ‘A marriage of convenience...a business deal,’ she muttered finally. ‘You get a partner to stand next to you on platforms and say the right things at civic functions, I get the vineyard back in a year?’

He nodded. ‘We’d be sleeping partners for a year.’ The gleam of humour in his eyes made her hands curl into tight fists at her sides.

‘You mean a marriage in name only?’

He didn’t answer her immediately. His eyes moved over her, looking at the curves of her figure, the luxuriant fall of her hair around the young face.

‘No, I know my limitations. You do have a fabulous body and I have a very healthy appetite. I’d want you in my bed, Paige.’

For just a moment she was so shocked that she couldn’t speak.

‘It’s not such a repulsive idea...is it, Paige?’ he enquired genuinely. ‘I know you are a good deal younger than I, but when we kissed a few moments ago it was very pleasurable; you can’t deny that. In fact I’m sure I tasted desire on your lips. It made me wonder why I had never kissed you before.’

Her skin burned with furious fires of humiliation and anger. The fact that he was right just served to infuriate her further. Her pride would never admit to the fact that she found him attractive...never. She shook her head. ‘That’s in your imagination. You tasted surprise, shock, nothing else.’

One dark eyebrow lifted. ‘Are you sure? There was a time when I wondered if you might have a crush on me.’

The arrogance of that remark really stung. ‘How far back are you going?’ She kept her equilibrium with difficulty. ‘You’re not going to remind me of the time I invited you to be my date for my high-school prom, are you?’ She forced herself to laugh. She knew very well that this was one of the few times she had braved showing her feelings to Brad, had allowed herself to flirt. ‘Heavens! If I remember rightly you laughed, told me that people would accuse you of robbing the cradle, and you were right, it was absurd.’ She added flippantly, ‘I must just have been into older men at the time.’

He shrugged. ‘You were very young.’

‘The same fifteen years are still between us,’ she said, quietly now.

‘I haven’t forgotten.’ His voice was heavy, very serious for a moment. Then his eyes moved over the slender lines of her figure. ‘But you are twenty-two now and it’s different.’

For just a second Paige gained the impression that he was trying to convince himself of this fact more than her.

‘I’m fair game to be exploited for a year, you mean?’ she snapped, her nerves stretching beyond endurance. ‘I’d rather sell my soul to the devil.’ Her voice trembled.

‘I wouldn’t call being pulled from the brink of bankruptcy exploitation.’ He laughed at that. ‘And I think you will agree to my proposal... because it will be the most profitable move of your life.’ He turned and walked towards the door. ‘Think it over.’

CHAPTER TWO

‘I CAN’T believe that you are faced with the prospect of selling this place,’ Rosie said with heartfelt sympathy in her voice.

‘It’s just unfortunate.’ Paige tried to play down her emotion on the subject as she poured her friend another cup of coffee.

They were in Paige’s kitchen at the vineyard. It was getting up towards midday and Paige had a million jobs waiting to be done. She had shelved them all very gratefully when Rosie arrived, glad of a chance to talk and relax for a while.

‘But what will you do? Where will you go?’

Paige shrugged. At the back of her mind Brad’s offer lay...too scary to think deeply about, too intriguing to forget. ‘I might go to Seattle. One of my friends has got a flat up there and apparently some contacts if I want to start looking for a job.’

‘Seattle!’ Rosie sounded shocked. ‘That’s a hell of a long way away... Who lives up there? Not that guy you were friendly with...Josh Summers?’

Paige smiled. ‘No, not Josh. He was just a friend, you know, Rosie... There was nothing romantic between us.’

‘No, but he would have liked there to be. I saw the way he looked at you when he came up here for that long weekend.’

‘He was just a fellow student. I had a card of sympathy from him when he heard about my father’s death...but I certainly have no plans to move in with him, I can assure you.’ She leaned back against the windowsill and sighed. ‘Strange, but Brad jumped to exactly the same conclusion when I told him I might share a flat with a friend. He asked if it was a male friend.’

‘Did he, now?’ Rosie looked extremely interested in this. ‘When did you see Brad?’

‘He came over here last night.’ For a moment there was silence as Paige grappled with her conscience over whether or not to tell Rosie about Brad’s outrageous proposal.

Paige had been friends with Rosie Jefferson for years. They used to sit together in school, and had shared many secrets and dreams over the years. Even though they had been separated while Paige was away at college, and Rosie got married, they were still as close as ever.

But now, for the first time, Paige found she didn’t want to confide in her friend. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Rosie, it was more that she didn’t want to voice the extremely personal nature of Brad’s proposal—the fact that he had suggested a relationship based purely on business reasons hurt in some strange way. She tried to tell herself that it was her pride that was hurting, but deep down she wasn’t too sure.

‘Have you forgiven him over the money?’ Rosie asked, her eyes moving over the pallor of Paige’s skin.

She shrugged. ‘I suppose if, I’m honest, I can’t really blame him totally... What is it they say? Never a lender or a borrower be?’

‘I’m sure if he could have afforded to let your father’s loan ride he would have,’ Rosie said with a nod. ‘He’s a decent guy.’

‘Yes...’ Deep down Paige wanted to believe that. But the fact that Brad had openly told her he could afford to let the loan ride and had chosen not to did still grate rawly. Her father had been so broken up just before he had died... The memory was pitiful and it tore at Paige.

‘I’m glad that you two are friends again,’ Rosie continued briskly. ‘Brad must be pretty upset at the moment, anyway. I believe he and Carolyn Murphy have split up.’

‘He mentioned something,’ Paige said noncommittally.

‘Apparently she has ditched him for Robert Hicks.’

‘Really?’ There was complete amazement in Paige’s voice now. Strangely she hadn’t for one moment considered the fact that Carolyn might have been the one to finish with Brad.

Rosie grinned. ‘I knew that would surprise you. You’ve always had a soft spot for Brad, haven’t you?’

‘That’s in the past.’ Paige tried to sound firmly convinced and ignore the little whispering voice inside her that wanted to argue with that.

‘Sure.’ Rosie wasn’t at all taken in by Paige’s reply. ‘But you’re right, Carolyn must have been crazy to finish with Brad; he is gorgeous. If I weren’t a married woman, and didn’t adore my Mike, I’d be interested myself.’

‘How do you know that Carolyn finished with him? Did Brad tell you that?’

‘No, of course not. Mike sees a lot of Brad these days as he’s going to be managing Brad’s campaign for mayor. But I don’t think they discuss things like that... Well, if they do, my husband certainly hasn’t repeated it to me. No, I met Carolyn in town a while ago and she told me herself.’ Rose wrinkled her nose. ‘She’s extremely confident, you know, and I must say she looked fabulous. Made me wish I’d stuck to my diet last year.’

‘You don’t need to diet, Rosie,’ Paige said quickly. Rosie Jefferson was an extremely attractive blonde. She wasn’t fat, she just had a curvaceous figure.

Rosie shrugged as if she didn’t agree but wasn’t going to argue about it today.

‘So what did Carolyn say?’ Paige reached to pick up her coffee from the table.

‘Get this.’ Rosie’s eyes twinkled with good humour. ‘She said, and I quote, “I’ve finished with Brad. He was getting rather tiresome. Robert has asked me to marry him and I’ve accepted.”’

‘Marry him!’ Paige’s eyes widened. ‘She’s marrying Robert Hicks!’

‘Just goes to show you can’t take anything for granted.’ Rosie nodded. ‘I think we were all convinced that Carolyn would marry Brad. They seemed like the perfect couple, didn’t they?’

‘Yes, they did,’ Paige agreed quietly.

‘Of course, Robert comes from an extremely wealthy family. They own a lot of property in San Francisco. Carolyn was telling me that they are going to live there after the wedding.’

Paige wondered if deep down Brad was heartsore about the whole thing.

‘Anyway, the coast is now clear. As far as I can make out Brad isn’t seeing anyone at the moment...not a girlfriend on the playing field.’

‘I’m sure that won’t be the situation for very long.’ Paige sipped her coffee then met the gleam in her friend’s eye. ‘Don’t look at me like that. I’m not in the slightest bit interested any more,’ she said staunchly.

Yet despite the strong words, despite everything that had happened to turn her against Brad, she knew very well that she was far more interested than she should be. She wondered if the fact that Carolyn had finished with Brad had triggered his decision to propose to her. Perhaps he had been counting on Carolyn to be by his side during the elections and now that the love of his life was going to marry someone else he had decided just to cut his losses and make a marriage purely for business reasons. ‘Anyway, once this place is sold I shall be moving away. So it’s irrelevant who Brad is seeing or isn’t seeing,’ she said firmly, trying very hard not to care.

Rosie frowned. ‘You aren’t really serious about leaving the valley, Paige? Surely you could find a job around here? You’ve only just graduated from college; you’ve got bags of qualifications.’

Paige shook her head. ‘I’m going to make a fresh start,’ she said with gentle determination. ‘I couldn’t bear to stay around here and see this vineyard being run by someone else. It would just break my heart.’

‘I don’t want you to leave, Paige...’ Rosie looked over at her, a sudden serious light in her eyes. ‘Especially now.’

‘Believe me, I don’t want to go—’ Paige broke off and frowned at her friend. ‘Why especially now?’

‘I was going to ask you to be godmother to our baby.’ Rosie smiled, happiness radiating through her every word.

‘Rosie! You’re not!’ Paige put her cup down and squealed with delight.

‘I am.’ Rosie nodded. ‘Four weeks pregnant.’

Paige moved to throw her arms around her friend.

‘It just seems that everything is going right at last,’ Rosie said, her eyes misting with sudden tears.

‘Oh, Rosie, it’s wonderful news. I’m so happy for you both.’ Paige squeezed her friend warmly before drawing back.

‘So you can’t go away...not now,’ Rosie said earnestly. ‘I want you to stay. I want you to settle down here and be as happy as Mike and I are.’

‘I don’t think that’s possible,’ Paige said with a tremor in her voice.

‘Anything is possible,’ Rosie said with strong conviction.

The sound of a car driving up outside made Rosie break off. Paige went to glance out of the window. A bright red Porsche had pulled in alongside Rosie’s old car and her Jeep.

‘It’s Brad,’ Paige murmured, her body filling with sudden apprehension.

‘Anybody home?’ His voice, strong and decisive, filtered through from the front hallway a moment later.

‘He acts as if he owns the place already,’ Paige said with annoyance. ‘Just barges on in when it suits him.’

Rosie smiled. ‘We are in the kitchen. Brad,’ she called out cheerfully.

A few seconds later he appeared in the kitchen doorway, looking tanned and powerfully attractive in his jeans and a navy blue polo shirt. ‘It seems I’ve arrived just in time,’ he grinned, eyeing the coffee pot on the table.

‘You certainly have.’ Rosie was the one who got out another cup and poured the drink for him. ‘Good to see you, Brad.’

‘It’s good to see you too...and looking so well.’ He smiled and kissed the side of Rosie’s cheek as he passed her. ‘I’ve just come from your house. Mike was telling me the good news. Congratulations.’

Rosie’s cheeks flared a bright pink. ‘Thanks.’

Brad glanced over at Paige and for a moment his dark eyes lingered contemplatively on her face.

She felt heat licking through her veins as she remembered their last meeting, the way he’d kissed her...his proposal.

She looked hurriedly away from him, but she was still acutely aware of the way he was watching her, the way his eyes had travelled away from her face and down over the slender lines of her figure in the pale blue sundress.

Rosie handed him his coffee. ‘Actually, I was just leaving,’ she said, looking from him towards Paige.

‘You don’t have to dash off on my account,’ Brad said sipping his drink.

‘No, no, I was going anyway.’ Rosie finished her coffee. ‘Perhaps you can talk some sense into Paige. She’s talking about going to live in Seattle, you know.’

‘Seattle?’ Brad looked at Paige with a frown.

Silence hung heavily in the air for a moment before Rosie said with a gleam of mischief in her eyes. ‘She won’t admit it, but I’m sure it’s that guy she met at college trying to talk her into going up there. Probably hoping she’ll agree to live with him.’

‘Rosie!’ Paige’s eyes widened at such a blatant untruth.

‘It isn’t good to make such a radical decision while you are still in mourning for your father, Paige... You’re not thinking clearly,’ Rosie continued totally unabashed by the look of disapproval on her friend’s face. She reached to pick up her handbag. ‘Anyway, I’ll leave you two alone. As I said, perhaps you can talk some sense into her Brad...?’

‘Thank you, but I don’t need anyone to talk sense into me,’ Paige murmured uncomfortably. ‘I am quite capable of managing my own life.’

Rosie shook her head. ‘I’ll phone you later, Paige. Let’s have lunch one day next week?’

Paige nodded and made to walk to the car with her friend, but Rosie waved her hand. ‘I can find my own way.’

The silence in the kitchen was loaded with tension once the back door closed behind her.

‘Seattle?’ Brad said again, and shook his head. ‘You know it does nothing but rain up there, don’t you?’

‘It will make a refreshing change, then, won’t it?’ Paige said briskly. She finished her coffee and put the cup down on the pine kitchen table, her eyes moving to the perfect blue sky outside.

‘Is there some man waiting in the wings for you up there?’ Brad persisted.

‘I’ve told you once, that’s none of your business,’ Paige replied staunchly. She had too much pride to admit that it wasn’t the truth. Let him think there was someone else who wanted her... and not for the cold-blooded business reasons he had propounded.

‘Rosie is right in a way, you know; you shouldn’t make such radical decisions at the moment. You’re still in shock from your father’s death.’

She glanced over at him. ‘Is that your way of telling me that you have changed your mind about us getting married?’

‘No, my...offer still stands.’ His voice was low, velvety and seductive.

Paige couldn’t find her voice to say anything for just a moment. She wouldn’t have been surprised if he had come over here to tell her the whole idea was a mistake; that he hadn’t been serious about his proposal. She shook her head, trying to dismiss the notion that she was relieved he hadn’t changed his mind, trying to clear the madness of this whole thing from her heart. ‘How come you think it would be a folly for me to rush up to Seattle while I’m, as you and Rosie like to put it, “not thinking clearly”, but it would be OK for me to rush into a marriage with you?’ Her voice was dry.

‘I’d rather you made a mistake with me than with somebody else.’ There was a gleam of humour in his dark eyes, a lopsided tug of a grin on the firm line of his lips. Something about it made her heart twist painfully. Brad’s droll sense of humour had always struck a chord inside her; she loved that wry glint, the effortless ease with which he could make her smile back at him. She fought the impulse now; this was too serious a discussion to laugh away lightly.